CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Lobby => Headphone Measurements => Topic started by: Marvey on February 07, 2013, 07:01:06 AM
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Subjectively more relaxed sounding, less snappy, and also less bassy, and more open than the two other HE-500s in my possession (one was on a long term loan).
(http://www.changstar.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=783.0;attach=2914;image)
Compare the graph above with this (the other HE-500): http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,101.msg606.html#msg606 (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,101.msg606.html#msg606)
Too difficult to say if this is the result of the wood or not.
See the headphone pics in this post: http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,776.0.html (http://www.changstar.com/index.php/topic,776.0.html),
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CSDs. Smooth. The other HE-500 (stock) measurement shows small ridges in the mid-treble at 11kHz. The treble ridges with this one seem to be pushed up to the higher treble around 13-14kHz, which would less audible as sizzle.
There's definitely more high treble energy which would result in air. Perhaps this contributes to the unit having an more open headstage. Matching is pretty darn good.
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Good looking graphs. Looks like <500hz is more even and in line with that ~13K peak. Strange too the 6k dip in the stock (measurement artifact?) isn't as sharp or pronounced.
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I actually think the woody is slightly more recessed sounding than the stock. Take a look at the later time slivers in the upper mids and lower treble. The woody CSD drops faster in those regions. Again, I don't know if it's the wood or simply product variances.
I do want to emphasize that it's still very much an HE-500. In other words, the differences are much smaller than your Grade B pre-RMA LCD2r2 and your Grade A post-RMA LCD2r2.
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Nice to see no crazy product variations and good driver matching. The upper mids and tremble seem to be more even on this one. Beautifully modded as well.
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I actually think the woody is slightly more recessed sounding than the stock. Take a look at the later time slivers in the upper mids and lower treble. The woody CSD drops faster in those regions. Again, I don't know if it's the wood or simply product variances.
I do want to emphasize that it's still very much an HE-500. In other words, the differences are much smaller than your Grade B pre-RMA LCD2r2 and your Grade A post-RMA LCD2r2.
If you have the chance to measure your other pair of nonmodded HE500 for comparison against the original HE500 measurement, that'd be good evidence toward whether or not HE500s has had driver revisions.
Also, I noticed the modded HE500s have black-painted yokes, rather than silver ones which current production HE500s have. Is that HE500 a very early production model?
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Hey fellas. Those are some interesting measurements. I was anticipating a near identical frequency curve, but looks like there is alittle variance.
Couple things that may have caused it:
1) Claro Walnut is really light and porous. Even with copious coats of instrument lacquer would not change the fact that there are comparatively large air chambers riddled throughout the wood. The stock plastic rings are denser.
2) The drivers are fit pretty snuggly inside the rings, but it's not precise. Perhaps the minute variances of an organic surface has an impact on planar drivers which rub against it?
3) I'm assuming you used the same cable for each pair tested? If not, perhaps the copper nucleotide cable has something to do with it.
Marv,
I wish I could send more to you. Incredibly I have two sets of Grado Blackstar based headphones. One is the latest African Blackwood set with XLR's and the other is an actual set of HP-2's. That would be a cool comparison amongst many others that head out my door.
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Martin's doing up some HE-* cups for me, so I'll hand mine over to Marv for testing when they're available.
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Now that would be an HE6 I'd like to hear.
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I have a set of HE rings about half way done for MisterRogers. The first set is Quilted Maple Burl. I have a new vacuum chamber filled with stabilizing resin that I just used for the first time with these rings. It essentially sucks out the air and replaces it with minute amounts of resin. It should create a denser wood and alleviate any issues with warping, cracking or splitting which is common for these types of "wood ring" headphones such as HE's and Audeze.
I have MisterRogers old set of HE600's which are the leather bound prototypes from Fang. But I haven't been able to listen to them yet or even think about modding them since I don't have enough juice for them. The Minute amp which I also bought from Mister, is in the shop getting fixed. I can't wait to see what the pairing is capable of. Just not sure if I should modify an already rare HE600. I probably won't. Just like you'd never, ever modify a set of HP's.
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As much as I admire your work, I have to second the notion of not modifying the HE600 in any way.
I'd love to hear a pair. Apparently they're even more demanding a load than the production HE-6?